1995

HIAS

HIAS launches an education campaign to mobilize public opinion against proposed legislation in Washington that would reduce immigration and make it more difficult for refugees to receive asylum in the U.S.

FORMER SOVIET UNION

In parliamentary elections, an alliance of the Communist Party and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party wins 209 out of 450 seats in the Duma.

U.S./WORLD

Right-wing terrorists bomb the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an individual opposed to the Oslo Peace Accords with the PLO.

STATISTICS

Jewish emigrants from the USSR: 86,554

Soviet Jewish immigrants to US: 21,691

Soviet Jewish immigrants to Israel: 64,800

Looking Back

Responding to the recent wave of Russian Jewish immigration to the U.S., the Forward Association, publisher of the Yiddish newspaper Forverts, launches a Russian-language edition five years after launching the English-language newspaper Forward.

In Israel, former refusenik Natan Sharansky founds a political movement called Yisrael be’aliya, which means both “Israel on the rise” and “Israel for aliyah.” It evolves into a political party that wins seven seats in the Knesset in 1996.

HIAS Newsletter

Stay up to date on refugee issues and the latest on immigration reform.